Frank Oz and salesmen

[minor muppetz]

What is it with Frank Oz and salesmen characters? It seems like he has performed quite a few Salesman characters on Sesame Street, with his most regular ones being Lefty and Grover, the latter being a salesman on many occassions.

But Frank Oz also performed circle salesman Samuel Snidley in a sketch with Bob, and performed a salesman who appeared in the "waiting for the woodsman" Sesame Street News sketch.

 

[Princeton]

I'm guessing he performed Lefty because he could vocally do justice to a sleazy salesman character. And although Grover was a salesman occasionally, I'd hardly put him in the same group as Lefty.

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, pretty much all of those salesmen characters are different in personality. Samuel Snidley is a bit like Grover, and seems to be a wacky type of Frank Oz character, but in his one sketch he approached Bob from behind the wall, though he seems like he could be a door-to-door salesman. And the salemsan from the news flash segment is just a cameo character, and therefore doesn't have much personality (though he seemed to me like a dorky type of character... maybe more of a door-to-door dork than door-to-door salesman).

 

[minor muppetz]

Another salesman character who Frank Oz has performed was the t-shirt salesman from the sketch where Kermit went to pick up a personalized t-shirt.